Dunne defends dummy line-up and slams replay venue

Delicacy wasn’t one of Liam Dunne’s traits in his playing days with Wexford and diplomacy isn’t one of his traits now as his home county’s senior hurling manager.

After an against-the-odds draw with hot favourites Dublin in Wexford Park on Saturday evening, Liam wasn’t apologising for naming an almost entire dummy starting 15 or holding back from challenging Croke Park over what he sees as a poor attitude to teams outside the top tier in hurling.

First, the dummy line-up – does he care about the criticism he’s likely to get from certain quarters?

“No,” Liam’s blunt reply. “I’m managing the team, I’ll do whatever I like. I wore the Maor Foirne bib last year and sure I was going to be put in the stand, I was going to be fined, I was going to be suspended – it wouldn’t have been my first time being suspended.

“If I feel like doing it that way, I’ll do it. I don’t think there was anyone out there this evening that didn’t have a jersey on him or that someone didn’t know who they were. I had Paul Morris picked at corner-forward, he rings me this morning telling me he can’t play though we did bring him on as a sub. He was sick for two days but Jack [Guiney] came in and took his chance. It’s a joke.

“You’re asked to name a team on the Tuesday night and if you don’t, you’re going to be fined. And then the Dublin team is not given in — there was all hell breaking loose. There was a blank page going to be put in the programme because it was so late coming it.”

He reckons there are two possibilities to overcome the problem. “I think squad numbers are the way to go, or else we just find a system like Kilkenny’s. They name their team on a Friday night, it’s in the programme on Sunday, and nobody knows about it.”

More than a hint of sarcasm in that last remark, the suggestion that if any other county were to submit their actual team to the programme a few days earlier, it would surely find its way to the media before the Sunday. Where Liam wasn’t being sarcastic, however, was in his remark regarding the dummy team selection – “if you think it was bad this week, wait till next week!”

That will be for the replay, fixed for next Saturday in Parnell Park. Liam isn’t too happy about that either.

“They shouldn’t be bringing a game like this to Parnell Park. They’re on about wanting to promote hurling and look after the so-called weaker teams and the second tier teams but I think really they don’t give a shit.

“This is our main pitch down here in Wexford. I wonder what would have happened if we had brought it to Belfield [Enniscorthy]? I think we deserve to be in Croke Park if it’s a replay. If the Dublin footballers drew with Wexford down here tomorrow in the Leinster football championship, it [the replay] would be in Croke Park.

“The powers-that-be make the rules, we’ll abide by the rules, I’m only making the point. Treat the Dublin hurlers with the same respect as the Dublin footballers and treat the Wexford hurlers with a little bit more respect as well. They bring league games involving Dublin to Croke Park, this is the Leinster championship. I know the Leinster championship is taken with a pinch of salt, it’s all about Munster, just that Kilkenny is in Leinster. We can’t help that, they’re the big boys. I just feel it should be there.

“Then again if they do put it on in Croke Park and we go up there and get hammered I’ll probably be sorry I said that! But we live to fight another day, we’ll look forward to it. It’s great.”